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Psalm 64

Prayer for Protection from Enemies

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint;

preserve my life from the dread enemy.

Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,

from the scheming of evildoers,

who whet their tongues like swords,

who aim bitter words like arrows,

shooting from ambush at the blameless;

they shoot suddenly and without fear.

They hold fast to their evil purpose;

they talk of laying snares secretly,

thinking, “Who can see us?

Who can search out our crimes?

We have thought out a cunningly conceived plot.”

For the human heart and mind are deep.

But God will shoot his arrow at them;

they will be wounded suddenly.

Because of their tongue he will bring them to ruin;

all who see them will shake with horror.

Then everyone will fear;

they will tell what God has brought about,

and ponder what he has done.

Let the righteous rejoice in the L ord

and take refuge in him.

Let all the upright in heart glory.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

8 And they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves Pursuing the same subject, he remarks, that the poison concocted in their secret counsels, and which they revealed with their tongues, would prove to have a deadly effect upon themselves. The sentiment is the same with that expressed elsewhere by another figure, when they are said to be caught in their own snares, and to fall into the pit which they have digged themselves, (Psalm 57:6.) It is just that Heaven should make the mischiefs which they had devised against innocent and upright men to recoil upon their own heads. The judgment is one which we see repeatedly and daily exemplified before our eyes, and yet we find much difficulty in believing that it can take place. We should feel ourselves bound the more to impress the truth upon our hearts, that God is ever watching, as it were, his opportunity of converting the stratagems of the wicked into means just as completely effective of their destruction, as if they had intentionally employed them for that end. In the close of the verse, to point out the striking severity of their punishment, it is said that all who saw them should flee away The judgments of God are lifted above out of the sight of an ignorant world, and ere it can be roused to fear and dismay, these must be such as to bear signal marks indeed of a divine hand.